


Dust and Devils

by reysrose



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (All of them. They're all in love), Chronic Pain, Cool Aunt Blue, Dad Adam, Dad Ronan - Freeform, Grief/Mourning, I still have no clue what the murder squash song is but Ill get there, Idiots in Love, In which Maura Sargent adopts a bunch of teenage boys and a little girl with goat legs, Men are stupid: A novel by blue sargent, Monmouth Manufacturing, Multi, Nightmares, No Smut, No bees, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Barns, The hondayota, bc I am a lesbian, chronically ill male character, learning to cook, what's a dick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-10-10 06:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17420624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reysrose/pseuds/reysrose
Summary: Excelsior: Onwards and Upwards.Alternately: What they don't show you after the happy ending





	1. Ronan's Room

**Author's Note:**

> What's up this is my first fic for TRC it has no discernible plot. Enjoy. Hit me on Tumblr at reysxrose for more quality gay of the female persuasion. 
> 
> Song of the chapter: Chasing Twisters, Delta Rae

“Jesus H. Christ.”

Ronan scowls at him from where he slouches on his mattress, deep circles under his eyes. 

“How do you live like this, Ronan? Fucking hell.”

Adam nudges an empty whiskey bottle with his toe and it rolls into a pile of dirty laundry. He’s worried if he steps too hard on the floor, one of Ronan’s stacks of shit will topple over and crush them both. He sighs. 

“I don’t live like this. I don’t want to live like this. That’s why I asked you to come help me fix it.”

Ever since his mother got torn to shreds, ever since Gansey died and came back, Ronan has been sleeping less and drinking more, hiding in his room with Chainsaw and Opal. He officially dropped out of Aglionby, and if he’s not at The Barns, he’s generally facedown on his mattress. Adam is worried. He sits on the bed next to Ronan, turning his palm face up and drawing stars across his life line. 

“Tell me what’s happening.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ronan, come on.”

There’s a shaky sigh, and Ronan’s dark head on his shoulder. He’s growing his hair out. Adam runs his fingers through the short curls springing up on the back of Ronan’s neck. 

“I can’t- It’s all-”

Adam slides his hand down from Ronan’s hair and under his collar, rubbing his back. Ronan curls into the touch and Adam goes with him, readjusting so they’re nose to nose on Ronan’s unmade bed. The sheets are dingy, and Adam doesn’t want to think about how long it’s been since Ronan washed them.

“It’s all too much,” Ronan whispers, pressing his forehead against Adam’s. Adam cups the back of his head, scratching at his scalp again with blunted fingernails. 

“The mess? Ronan, we can fix the mess.”

“It’s not the mess,” he croaks out. Adam watches a tear slide out of his eye and he wipes it away with his thumb. Ronan shudders and looks away. Adam knows what Ronan wants to do. Ronan wants to spit and snarl and tell Adam to fuck off, to leave, that he’s fine. But Ronan isn’t fine. The door to Monmouth slams shut and Gansey and Blue walk in, talking (arguing) loudly about Gansey’s shoes. He can hear Opal’s little hooves clicking on the floor. Ronan flinches, still refusing to look at Adam. 

“I can’t help if you won’t talk to me, Lynch.”

Ronan snarls at him, a little bit of fire jolting through his bones. Good, Adam thinks. If he’s angry, he’ll at least talk. 

“I cannot cope with the shit living in my brain. There. Happy now? I’m falling apart.” 

“You’re not.”

Ronan sits up and scrubs his hands over his face once, twice, three times before Adam grabs them, because he’s pressing too hard. Ronan struggles against his grip but goes limp in seconds, head hanging down. Adam spots a molding cheeseburger near Chainsaw’s cage and decides that’ll be the first to go. 

“I can’t sleep.” 

“Not important.”

“I can’t eat.”

“We can fix that.”

“Adam…”

“Let’s clean this fucking room, Ronan.”

Ronan nods, standing up. Adam loops arms around his waist, feeling the corded muscles in his back flex when he stretches, and presses a delicate kiss to Ronan’s mouth. 

“We’re all fine, Lynch. Now we just gotta heal.”


	2. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan, Blue, and a lie

The first time Blue really notices Ronan’s scars, they’re midway through The Conjuring and she jumps, grabbing his wrist between her comparatively tiny fingers and squeezing until the fear passes. When she goes to let go, still anxious, she realizes that her hand is covering long patches of raised skin. 

“Ronan…” Blue breathes. It’s not like she didn’t know about The Thing They Don’t Talk About, but it’s different with the physical evidence of it pressed against the pads of her fingers. Ronan jerks his wrist out of her grip, staring straight ahead. The curve of his spine has gone ramrod sharp and angry. Adam, asleep with his head on Ronan’s shoulder, murmurs and shifts before settling from the rapid shift. Blue curls her hand into her chest, rubbing the fingers together as she tries to shake the feeling of wrongness from them. She settles back against Gansey’s chest, pressing an ear to his pulse as he too sleeps through every jumpscare that has her bones rattling. 

The credits are rolling when Ronan carefully adjusts Adam to lay back against the couch. He slumps forwards, cradling his face in his hands, folding his leather bands into his mouth. Blue hovers her palm over his back, then makes a decision and places it down. Ronan doesn’t even flinch, just hitching a breath. 

“I’ve been telling Gansey for over a year that it was an accident,” Ronan mumbles, scrubbing his hands down his face and lifting his head, staring at the blank screen in front of him, “but it wasn’t, not entirely.” 

Blue doesn’t lift her hand. Ronan shivers angrily under her palm. 

“Ronan…”

“Fucking- Blue -”

Ronan’s hand snatches at her top and tugs her towards him. Blue wraps her arms around him, half in shock, half unable to be shocked by Ronan Lynch anymore. Ronan presses his head to her collarbone, clinging to her. 

“What do you mean, Ronan?”

He just shudders, his fingers looping in her shirt. Blue scrubs a hand over his hair like she’s seen Adam do, marveling in how soft his short curls are. Everything about Ronan seems so sharp, all the time. Running her fingers through his hair softens Ronan, literally and figuratively. He slumps against her, pliant and exhausted. 

“Talk to me,” Blue murmurs, still scratching at his scalp. She wants to know how Gansey and Adam are sleeping through this. Ronan’s tension takes up all the space in Monmouth and fills up Blue’s lungs.   
“It wasn’t an accident,” Ronan croaks out, “I know I say I never lie but I had to about this, Blue, I had to-”

“Ronan, breathe.”

“Gansey-”

“Enough about Gansey. Tell me what you mean.” 

“It was from the night terrors,” Ronan bites into her shoulder, “That much was true. But I called them to me, Blue. I let them do it.”

“I wanted to die.”

Ronan is crying, tears dripping into Blue’s pilfered Aglionby Rowing sweatshirt. Blue tries to hold onto him as tightly as he clings to her. 

“Shhhh. Shhhhh. It’s okay. Ronan, why are you telling me this?”

“Blue-” Ronan chokes out, “I need you to help me.” 

“With what?”

Ronan lifts his head from her shoulder, pressing his forehead to her cheekbone when he can’t meet her eyes. 

“I have to tell them,” he whispers. Blue keeps clinging to him, leaning both of them back against the couch. Ronan relaxes into the softness behind him with a watery sigh, his hands shaking.

“Okay. Okay, Ronan.”

“I need your help. I can’t do it-”

“Okay. You’re okay, Ronan.” 

Blue leans her head against the top of his head, sinking into the pillows like he has. 

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

Blue smiles into his curls.


	3. Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam kisses the tip of Opal’s nose, Ronan’s cheek, and turns out the light. Tomorrow he’ll call the doctor. Tomorrow he will let the very real anxiety of Ronan’s pain settle into his chest. 
> 
> Today, he has a party to manage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided "what if Ronan had lasting effects from being shredded alive by a demon bee" and this happened. In my defense my shoulder and back hurt and I was left unsupervised. If you want more/to see the doctor visit/know what Ronan gets diagnosed with I'll write more. I have chronic pain, and I'm always like "must introduce into writing"

Adam knows Ronan will never admit it, but there are lasting effects of nearly being unmade. 

Matthew is fine, so are Opal and Chainsaw. He watches Matthew teach Opal how to swim behind the farmhouse, decidedly not looking at the way Ronan flexes his fingers over and over like they hurt. 

They do. Adam knows they do. 

Ronan is slower and stiffer than he was before nearly being torn apart. Sometimes walking up the stairs looks like a challenge, Ronan’s hips and back rigid. His hands swell in the morning. Adam ran a hand over his back the other day, a light touch, and Ronan hissed and flinched away from his fingers. 

“Sorry,” Adam had murmured. Ronan had rolled over, pressed a kiss to Adam’s jawline in forgiveness. They didn’t talk about it. 

Matthew is spending the summer at the Barns, and Declan comes down for the 4th of July. On the actual date, an hour before Henry, Blue, and Gansey and probably most of Fox Way flood the house, Ronan still isn’t out of bed. 

“Ro?”

Ronan is curled in the center of their bed, not quite asleep and not quite awake. Opal peeks her head in the door around Adam’s legs.

“Kerah?”

Ronan pats the bed tiredly, and Opal jumps up and butts her head against Ronan’s bare chest. Ronan flinches.

“Gentle, brat.”

“Ronan, did that hurt?”

Adam sits on the bed, starts combing his fingers through Ronan’s dark curls. Ronan nods and grimaces, tucking his head into his chest. Opal scoots against his belly, one of her little hands tugging on his shirt.

“Kerah doesn’t feel good,” she announces, somber like she’s intoning a funeral dirge. Adam snorts. He can see that pretty clearly, but there’s a part of him that knows Opal doesn’t just mean today. Adam thinks back over bad headaches, Ronan actually sleeping through the night, naps Ronan thinks nobody knows about, the flinches, the stiff walk. 

“Ronan-”

“Help me up, Parrish.” 

Ronan groans and stumbles into Adam’s chest, head falling to rest on Adam’s shoulder. The muscles beneath Ronan’s tattoo are tense and knotted. 

“Does it hurt if I touch your back?”

Ronan grunts, shaking his head.

“Just hurts.”

“How long?” Adam murmurs, Ronan’s ear tilted toward his mouth well enough to hear him.

“Since...Since Cabeswater.”

“Jesus Christ, Ronan.”

“I know.”

Ronan must be feeling absolutely shit, Adam thinks, because he doesn’t push off the frustration in Adam’s voice with sarcasm, just wraps his arms around Adam’s middle. 

“I could tell- I mean- It seemed like you were always sore or in pain, but part of me wanted to put it off to farm work.”

Part of me wanted to forget that you almost dying ever even happened, Adam’s brain hisses. Even if it meant brushing off your pain. 

“S’fine.” 

He wants to argue, but instead he just eases Ronan back against the mattress. Ronan goes easy, dropping his head into his hands and rubbing along the sharp bones around his eyes. He has a headache, his eyes are doing that thing where they tighten around the corners because they want to close. Opal stops making a nest of their comforter and climbs into Ronan’s lap, her tiny, grubby fingers pressing against his cheek.

“Kerah?”

Ronan wraps his arms around Opal, pressing a kiss to her head. Adam shoves his shoulder lightly, scared to cause him any pain now that the true magnitude of the pain has set in.

“Lay down. Take a nap. I know you want to.”

Ronan rolls his eyes, leaning back on the mattress. Opal shrieks and cuddles up against his side, closing her eyes and fake snoring dramatically.

“What about Gansey and Sargent, and, fuck’s sake Jesus Mary Christ, I forgot about Declan and Cheng-”

“Ronan. I have it under control. Rest, so you’re not a fucking bastard all afternoon.”

Adam kisses the tip of Opal’s nose, Ronan’s cheek, and turns out the light. Tomorrow he’ll call the doctor. Tomorrow he will let the very real anxiety of Ronan’s pain settle into his chest. 

Today, he has a party to manage.


	4. Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam gets dragged to mass. Declan may or may not want to murder him and Ronan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's time for fun catholic doctrine time with reysrose!   
> 1) the "weird little hand gesture" the Lynch brothers do is three crosses, one over the forehead, one over the lips, and one over the chest. It's done right before the gospel reading. The priests says "a reading of the holy gospel according to (old dead guy). The congregation says Glory to you oh lord and does the thing.   
> 2) Ronan doesn't take communion canonically, and here's the reason, as far as I can tell. The Catholic Church has a list of mortal sins. If you violate one, you can't take communion. Homosexual acts are a mortal sin, but some people will tell you homosexuality in general counts. Funnily enough taking the lord's name in vain is too but that never stops my family. Also you gotta go to confession every year to take communion and I can't see Ronan Fucking Lynch sitting in a confessional with a priest and telling him about drag racing Kavinsky and oh yeah def wanting to fuck Kavinsky. I also do not take communion for the same reasons. I also don't go to CHURCH for the same reasons, but I had to.   
> 3) if I swore like that in church my Irish catholic mother would smack the taste out of my mouth, still to this day. I'm a legit adult.

“When you said come out with me today, this is not what I thought you meant,” Adam hisses, self conscious in his jeans. Ronan grimaces at him. He looks like he wants to strangle himself with his own tie. 

“I fucking forgot, okay-”

“Don’t say fucking in mass, shithead-”

“Eat me, Declan- Adam, I forgot I had to come to church.” 

“You go every Sunday,” Adam grumbles under his breath, “You even had your suit. How could you possibly forget?”

Ronan shoots him a withering look, one that screams “you know why, horndog.” And Adam totally knows why- he and Ronan had been too busy to go to sleep until about 4 am, and Ronan had slept straight through every single one of Declan’s increasingly irritable voicemails. 

He had not wanted to wake up to Declan banging on the door of his tiny apartment about St. Agnes (forgive them both father because they had done a lot of sinning the night previously), still naked, with Ronan dead to the world on his chest. 

Adam has never been to a Catholic mass before. He’s been in St. Agnes, and he’s heard the organ through the floor every day he’s lived there. He studiously avoids looking at the space where dream Ronan had died choking on his own blood, studiously avoids thinking about regretting leaving Ronan to clean up his own mess. Can’t help thinking about Ronan, actually dying in the front seat of the beemer while Adam, blindfolded and bound and beholden to a demon and helpless, can do nothing but listen to him gasp and writhe. The echo of the engine out of ear spins through his bad ear. 

“You okay?” Ronan whispers, lacing their fingers together on the seat of the pew. Adam swallows convulsively. The little old lady next to them stares pointedly at their joined hands and Adam half expects Ronan to flip her off in a house of God but he doesn’t. 

“Yeah just- thinking.”

“Quit talking in church,” Declan hisses, from the other side of Matthew’s curly head. The choir is singing and suddenly everyone around Adam is standing up, so he stands up too. And then proceeds to stand there, awkwardly, because he doesn’t know the words, or the funny little gestures Ronan and Declan and Matthew do in perfect sync. 

The priest starts to read from the Bible. Adam, at least, has read the Bible. Ronan keeps their hands together. 

There’s a lot of sitting, standing, some kneeling. Adam remains confused. Ronan goes to communion (Adam at least knows what that is because of learning about the Reformation), but Adam stays in the pew. Ronan doesn’t take the wafer, just crosses his arms across his chest and lets the priest touch him on the forehead. Then it’s over. 

“That wasn’t so bad, eh?” Ronan asks as they leave the church ahead of Declan and Matthew. Ronan is swinging their hands between them like a little kid. Adam tries to hide his smile. 

“No. But you can still buy my lunch.”


	5. Doctors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Adam see the doctor about Ronan's chronic pain. A continuation of chapter three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more information about The Beighton Scale and HSD, check out this link. I do not have the disease Ronan has, but I do have Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which can cause debilitating chronic pain and all the same symptoms like chronic headaches, brain fog, and excessive sleeping.  
> https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/what-is-hsd/  
> https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/assessing-joint-hypermobility/ 
> 
> ALSO if you've ever been diagnosed with a chronic illness you know there is no way in hell you get diagnosed in one appointment. It takes like, months. But this is fiction so. If you want any more of this weird head canon of mine, lemme know!

Ronan is, to put it mildly, fucking sick of being in pain.

It starts the day after a demon bee tries to rip him into little tiny pieces of black goop. It never stops. Even when it doesn’t hurt, there’s a vague notion of an ache under his skin, one that makes him want to jump into the hottest water he can stand and never get out in an attempt to make it stop. His back and hands are the worst affected, followed by his hips. It’s like his insides and his outsides hurt. Adam’s gentle touches ache and sting, Opal’s rough play make it feel like someone is shoving splinters in his tender joints. His head starts to hurt nearly daily by March.

The summer makes it all worse. Ronan can physically feel the humidity of a Virginia summer and the oncoming storms from the mountains in his spine and fingers, like a human barometer. He’s been doing his best to hide it from Adam, and Adam is letting him pretend that he’s doing a good job. The weeklong pressure headache he has in June definitely makes it harder for both of them to pretend that Ronan is fine. He’s curled up on the couch with a blanket, Opal in his lap. There’s a red Gatorade on the table next to him, lights off, TV on as quiet as it’ll go. His head throbs in time to the rain hitting the tin roof of the house. He’s asleep by the time Adam comes home, after puking from the pain in his skull. 

On July 4th, Ronan’s body has had enough. He knows he needs to get up, but his brain feels like a scrambled egg and his back throbs, every vertebra grinding together. He buries his face in the pillow and dozes, off and on. His head aches, his hips feel stiff and stuck in the sockets. When he curls a hand into a fist, his fingers crack and sharp pain shoots through the joints. 

“Ro?”

And just like that, the jig is up. Adam knows, fully, the extent of the pain, and Ronan is too exhausted by it to try to fight when Adam makes him a doctor’s appointment, drives him into Henrietta. Ronan’s hands hurt particularly bad and Adam takes the form from him and fills out his paperwork. Ronan lets his head fall on Adam’s shoulder. His brain feels like a scrambled egg again, a feeling that makes him vaguely dizzy. He slept for 10 hours the night before, he shouldn’t be tired, but he is. Ronan squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them again, hoping he’s home at the Barns and can go to bed. 

“Ronan Lynch?”

Adam isn’t allowed to go back with him, but they’d made a list. Ronan lets the nurse take his blood pressure and weigh him, then sinks onto the exam table with a sigh of pained relief. He aches so badly. He wishes the nurse had let Adam come. His head hurts again. The doctor makes him take his shirt and pants off, and then Ronan lays down on the table on his stomach. A hand presses against his spine and he yelps, and another presses against his iliac crest.

“Mother of Christ, fuck, that hurts-”

The doctor makes him sit up again.

“Ronan, can you touch your thumbs to the inside of your wrist?”

He can only do one.

“Can you bend your pinkies backwards to a 90 degree angle”

Hard no. 

“Can you extend both arms out in a t position, as straight as they’ll go?”

“Are you gonna tell me why I’m doing all this dumb shit, doc?”

“I’m testing a theory. Stand up, and touch your toes.”

He can, just barely. The doctor lets him sit down.

“My first impression, of a young man with chronic widespread pain, was hypermobility spectrum disorder.”

Ronan nods along, pretending he knows what that means. 

“However, you’re barely a three on the Beighton scale, so you don’t qualify. Can you tell me all your symptoms again?”

Ronan unfolds the list. 

“Headaches. Hypersomnia. My brain feels like a scrambled egg-my boyfriend says that’s called brain fog, but I like my metaphor better- and the pain.”

“Ronan, I think I know what you have.”

He makes it back to the waiting room after a precautionary blood test, stumbling into Adam’s waiting arms and kissing Adam’s temple.

“Verdict?”

“Fibromyalgia?” Ronan hands over the pamphlet the doctor had given him. A nerve thing, she had said. She’d written him a prescription and referred him to a chiropractor. Ronan cracks his back then his hips. He’s in the middle of popping his fingers when Adam looks up.  
“Okay. Okay.”

“Adam,” Ronan says lowly, because Adam looks more panicked than Ronan, “Adam, baby, it’s going to be fine.” 

“It’s just- Ronan, I don’t-”

Ronan rolls his eyes, tugging Adam towards the BMW and fishing his keys out of his pocket. 

“We can figure it out later, alright? I get it, but I would like to be able to live in blissful denial at least until I pick up my drugs. Want Starbucks?”

Adam nods mutely. Ronan shifts, and roars out of the parking lot.

Something is going to be permanently fucked, and he knows it. This is a big deal, not just for him, but for Adam, for Gansey and Blue and Henry, hell, for Opal. Ronan isn’t going to be Ronan, ever again. He shoves the thought away.

He’s not ready to accept it. 

He’d rather raise a little hell first.


	6. Come Get Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue has a panic attack. Ronan gets her through it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fuck heavy with bronan, and it shows. Hit me on tumblr for prompts @ rxnanlynchxs.

Blue will not wonder later what she was thinking, because she’s wondering what she was thinking as she sends the text. Ronan had forced phones on both her and Adam after they all almost died, and Blue had taken it without comment. She knew it meant he loved her. Besides, it was a dream thing and cost no money, so it wasn’t charity, not really. 

*Come get me*

Blue puts the phone back in her pocket and waits, half listening to the lecture on the Mexican American war. She feels like she’s going to claw her skin off and the room feels too tight and too small. The voice in her head says ganseyganseyganseyronanadamgansey over and over. She needs to see at least one of them, run her fingers over warm skin. Ronan is the most likely to be able to get to her before she shatters into a million tiny pieces of heart and bone and sinew. Blue digs her nails into her thighs. She goes to the bathroom. Her eyes are red. She tugs out the phone again and calls him, this time, because if she doesn’t get out if she doesn’t get held by one of her raven boys if nobody tells her she’s okay and that they’re all safe-

“Sargent?” Ronan never answers the phone on the first try but he did this time. Blue whimpers. 

“Ronan-” she chokes out, sliding down the wall to sit on the grimy floor. She still can’t breathe. It aches. 

“Blue.”

“R-ronan, please- come- I can’t-”

When he speaks again Ronan is soft, like he is with Adam and Matthew and Opal. Like he was with her that night, after they got back to Fox Way and she wriggled herself between him and Adam and held tight to them both while they watched Gansey sleep off the after effects of being dead. 

“It’s okay. Take a breath with me, maggot.”

She takes a shaky inhale. There are bloody crescents in her palm. 

“G-Gansey-”

“Gansey is fine. He’s at school. So is Adam.” 

“Can you-”

“Yeah. I can come get you. Hang tight.”

“Ronan-” Blue whimpers. It’s all too much. She’s been holding it together but it’s only been a month, and she can’t anymore she just can’t-

“Blue you have to breathe. Count for me.”

“No-no-I can’t, please just come get me, please-”

She hears the purr of the engine through the speaker, the sudden throb of Ronan’s music. Blue lets out a choked sobbing sound.

“I’m on the way, Sargent.” 

She doesn’t know how he does it, but he manages to convince the office that Maura is the one who’s checking out Blue. She stumbles back to class, knowing she looks a mess, and makes sure to gather her things, and practically sprints to the BMW, tossing her backpack into the back seat and throwing her arms around Ronan’s neck. His broad hand rubs circles on her back and the movement is so Gansey that Blue starts sobbing into Ronan’s t-shirt. 

“Do you want me to take you home?”

Blue shakes her head, still falling apart in Ronan’s arms. She wants Gansey. She wants Gansey to hold her and Ronan and Adam to be within arm’s reach and she wants to never, ever let go of any of them. She wails in a way she didn’t know she could. 

“Shhhh. Shhhhhh. Come on, maggot. It’s alright.”

“You-you-almost-”

“But I didn’t. And Gansey came back. You made it all happen, Blue. It’s alright. Let’s go to Monmouth, yeah?”

She nods. Ronan twines the fingers of the hand on the gear shift with hers and lets her squeeze. She’s still crying, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever stop. She exhausts herself, limp in the passenger seat by the time they get to Monmouth. Tears are still running down her cheeks. 

“We’re here,” Ronan says softly, disentangling their fingers. Blue makes a strangled sound at the lack of contact but then her door is opening. Ronan doesn’t ask, doesn’t need to, just scoops her into his arms and lets her cry into his shoulder as he carries her up the stairs. 

Blue cries until she falls asleep, clutching Gansey’s pillow to her stomach. Ronan sits up in the bed with her, rubs her back until she loses consciousness, sheer exhaustion from the panic attack and proceeding meltdown dragging her under. 

When she wakes up, the sun is dim in the sky and there’s soft voices in the open space. Chainsaw croaks above her head and blue reaches up, runs a finger over her cool beak and lets her nibble at her nail. The bed smells like Gansey. She’s still in her school clothes, but Ronan at least took her shoes off. Blue sits up, rubbing her eyes.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, maggot,” Ronan crows, holding up his beer in greeting. He’s back to normal Ronan, but Blue can see the concern and softness in his eyes. Adam pokes him in the chest, rising from the couch and sitting on the edge of Gansey’s bed. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Better,” Blue murmurs. She’ll feel even better when she sees Gansey. She can hear the shower running. She wanders back over to the couch with Adam, his arm around her waist like she might fall. Her legs feel like jelly and her chest feels hollow. Ronan passes her a glass of water as she tucks herself into the corner of the couch. Adam traces patterns on her ankle. 

When Gansey steps out of the shower and into the main room, Blue can finally inhale. When she kisses him, smiling against his mouth, she feels a few more shattered pieces lodge themselves back into place.


	7. Immediately After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for emetophobia

Gansey takes a gasping breath at the same time as Ronan doubles over at the waist, fingers tangling in the dirt as he lets out a sound that’s half sob half dry heave. Adam grabs him without thinking, dragging Ronan into the protective circle of his arms. He’s not sure what’s happening, but Ronan is in distress, shaking and frozen in Adam’s lap. Ronan dry heaves again and then lifts his head, still coated in black gunk.

“Gansey,” he rasps, before his head falls back on Adam’s shoulder. Gansey is blinking, barely conscious, one hand rubbing at his chest and the other clinging to Blue’s wrist. Henry hovers, uncomfortable and terrified, and Orphan Girl’s head is peeking out from behind his legs.

“Gansey,” Ronan tries again, another quiver of something Adam can’t identify running through him. He remembers Ronan’s phone vibrating in the cup holder. Gansey tries to lift himself to his elbows but he fails, still laying in the damp grass and the mud. Ronan dry heaves, his head barely jerking with it, still rolled back on Adam’s shoulder. One shaking hand reaches out for Gansey, fisting his sweater. Gansey reaches out with the hand rubbing his chest and wraps it around Ronan’s wrist.

“Henry,” Adam says quietly, still holding onto Ronan, “can you get Ronan’s phone out of the BMW?”

Henry looks immediately relieved to have something to do. Blue is in tears, silent tracks down her face. Adam can’t reach her, not without moving Ronan, whose face is scrunched like he’s on a boat in a storm. 

“Blue, he’s alive. It’s okay,” he whispers. They all need to get out of the rain and back to Fox Way. He can’t imagine going anywhere but Fox Way, not right now. Ronan’s head pitches forward and he vomits for real this time, black muck staining both their clothes. Adam rubs his back. Gansey is unconscious again, still clinging to Ronan’s wrist. Ronan moans in distress and discomfort. Adam is vaguely aware that he’s shaking just as badly as Ronan. Henry goes to hand him the phone but stops when he sees the vomit. Adam wipes his stained hand in the wet grass and takes it, calling Declan. Ronan’s back shakes with another heave, but it’s dry again. 

“Ronan, what the FUCK-”

“It’s Adam,” he says, quiet. He can’t tell what parts of Ronan hurt, what parts of him don’t. Blue is slumped forward, staring straight ahead. 

“Parrish, please tell me he’s okay. Matty was- there was-”

“He’s alive. He’s gonna be okay. I’ll call you back.”

And Adam hangs up. They need to get off the side of the road. Gansey is bluish pale from the cold, his breathing labored. Ronan is conscious but barely. Blue is shaking like a leaf. 

“We need to go,” Adam says, standing up and taking Ronan with him. Ronan heaves again, more black coming up. Henry helps Blue lift Gansey to his feet, but they’re both smaller than Gansey and Gansey is dead weight. Adam shifts Ronan, half dragging him to the car and depositing him in the passenger seat. Ronan’s head rolls against the leather, black seeping from his eyes as his body continues to purge. 

“Sit tight.”

Adam gathers Gansey into his arms, trying to ignore how much he still feels like a dead body, focusing instead on Gansey’s pulse beating against his shoulder. He slides him into the backseat, letting Blue climb in and tug his head into her lap. Orphan Girl clambers in after her, looking blank. Adam closes the door and then Ronan’s, leaning against the door. 

“Go to Fox Way. We’ll follow, but I don’t know how fast I’ll be able to go with Ronan as sick as he is.” 

To his credit, Ronan only throws up in the footwell of the car once in the 30 minutes it takes to get to Fox Way. Blue is asleep when they get there, so is Orphan Girl. Gansey never wakes up, and the second he pulls the car into park the car is swarmed, Maura throwing open the backseat and wrestling Blue out, then Gansey with Henry and Calla’s help. Adam opens the passenger door, tugging Ronan’s arm over his shoulder. Ronan goes limp, and Adam swings his legs into his arms as well, locking the car. Gansey is on the couch, covered in blankets, his eyes open but barely. 

“Ronan,” he manages, clinging to Blue, “Ronan, you-”

“M’fine, Dick,” Ronan slurs, his head falling back as he loses consciousness again. Calla stops Adam, pressing a hand to Ronan’s forehead and grimacing.

“Lukewarm water, Coca Cola,” Calla says, staring at Ronan’s exhausted white face. “He’s cold like an icicle. And a bath, pretty boy, not a shower. He’ll fall and crack his head open.” 

He puts Ronan in a warm bath, stripping him down to his boxers. Ronan rolls his eyes up at him, head drooping. Adam crouches next to the tub, the bucket Calla gave him ready in case Ronan pukes again. 

“Parrish.”

“I’m right here,” Adam says, putting soap on a washcloth and scrubbing at the black on his face. Ronan looks like he wants to jerk back but he lets Adam wash his face, clearly miserable enough to resign himself to Adam’s scrubbing. Adam wipes at the stains on Ronan’s earlobe. Ronan throws up again, back shaking. 

“Drink some water,” Adam says, leaving no room for debate. Ronan does. Adam drains the tub after he’s cleaned the black off, helping Ronan to standing. Ronan is warmer but shaking, his head tilted down onto Adam’s shoulder. His back is tense and he moves stiffly. 

Gansey is still asleep on the couch when Adam gets Ronan back down the stairs. Blue is curled up on an older one that must have come out of a room somewhere in the back. Adam sits Ronan down on it and Ronan’s head falls against the back. Blue worms herself next to him, tucking herself into his side. Ronan wraps an arm around her unthinking and Adam slides in next to her, letting Blue rest her head on her shoulder. He reaches across her and twines his fingers with Ronan’s. 

Gansey sleeps, their king. And they wait.


	8. Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should there be a followup lmk

Ronan knows, when he sees the back of his father’s head, that the dream is going to suck. He clenches his fists, ducking behind a tree and taking a deep breath. 

Niall is splayed out on the leaf litter. Blood leaks from his shattered skull, brain oozes across the moss. Ronan wants to be sick. It’s just a memory, he tells himself. Memories can’t hurt him. He can’t help but gag a bit, clutching at the rough bark of the tree in front of him, scraping his knuckles across it until they bleed. 

“Not real, not real, not real,” he repeats with the rhythmic thud and scrape of bone and tender flesh over tree bark. In front of him, Niall’s corpse lifts it’s tattered head, smiling with all the teeth that are still in its bloodied mouth. Something digs into his side, drawing blood, yanking his body backwards. 

Ronan screams. 

He wakes up stuck in a contorted mimicry of the agony coursing through him, unable to move or scream or throw up. Someone’s hands are on him, and Ronan isn’t even sure where he fell asleep. He hopes for the Barns, knows he’s probably wrong. 

“Ronan. Ronan, come on.” 

That’s Blue. But those are not Blue’s hands, pressing against his side so hard that he wants to cry out. He comes back into his body and that’s what he does, writhing away from the pain with a low howl. 

“Calm down, Ronan. Jane, get me a towel, or something- Ronan, be still!” 

He falls off something tall and lands on the floor, pain surging again. Ronan retches. Someone gets him on his side so he doesn’t choke. 

“Oh, Ronan. It’s okay.” 

Blue swims into his blurred vision where he lays with his cheek in his own vomit, mouth pinched and tears in her eyes. He coughs, trying to turn his face out of his puke, and then Blue is shifting him, cupping his neck, laying his head on her tights instead. He moans. 

“We need to take him to a hospital.”

“We need to call Adam.”

“No hospital,” Ronan slurs, rolling his head across Blue’s thigh. Gansey is keeping pressure on the spot that hurts the worst (Ronan remembers something cutting him wide open) and Ronan reaches for him, tangling their fingers together. He hurts, all over, and he feels so sick and so, so cold-

“Stay awake.”

“We could take him to Fox Way? Dean is there, he’s good with first aid and between my mom and Calla will be able to keep him under control long enough to get him patched up.”

“Adam.” Ronan mumbles. He’s starting to feel tired. 

“He’ll meet us there,” Blue assures him, as Gansey drags him to standing. Ronan throws up again, body shaking from shock and sheer agony. Blue murmurs something, wiping his face with a bloody towel. She sits in the back of the Pig with him, smoothing her fingers over his head, holding something to his side. He feels awful. He wants Adam, wants his mom, his dad- he sobs, once, harsh and dry and aching. 

“Adam.” He says, more urgent, because he feels like he’s dying. 

“Gansey called him. He’s on his way, Ronan.” Vaguely, he registers how badly he’s trembling in Blue’s lap. Gansey hauls him out by the armpits and the three of them stumble up the stairs. Ronan stops, head falling onto Gansey’s shoulder, knees sagging. 

“Adam,” Ronan moans, because the shitbox is pulling up the curb, barely stopping before the key is yanked out of the ignition and his boyfriend is there. Adam scoops Ronan into his arms, and Ronan lets his head fall back. Blue is holding his hand, unlocking the door, shooing them all inside before the neighbors notice anything and get even more weirded out. 

“Mom!” Blue screams. Adam carries Ronan to the kitchen and lays him down on the table. Ronan’s head falls to the side. 

“Wanna see it,” he mumbles, reaching to touch the point of the worst pain. Adam grabs his wrist.

“Don’t touch it.” 

“Lemme see it,” he insists. Maura and Calla are swarming him. Calla lifts his shirt up and Ronan cranes his neck, catching sight of raw, shredded skin and muscle. Ronan lets out a strangled sound and Adam grabs his face, forcing him to look away. 

“Focus on me, Ro. Come on.”

“Adam,” he murmurs. He’s so tired, so so so tired. Dean comes in and he flinches, brain presenting him with the clear cut image of Niall on the ground. When he touches him, Ronan tries to fling himself bodily off the kitchen table. He almost succeeds, but Gansey throws his weight over Ronan’s legs and Adam pins his shoulders. Ronan moans. 

“No, no, no, dad- dad, DAD-” 

Adam is holding his head, kneeling on a kitchen chair, keeping him still as something happens on his side that sends fire through his entire body. Ronan screams, tears streaming down his face. He can hear Blue let out a sob and he reaches out for her, confused and aching and so cold again. 

“It’s okay, Ro, it’s okay!”

He can feel himself starting to slip down into unconsciousness and he yelps.

“You can’t-Don’t let me sleep,” he gasps out, rolling his head against Adam’s palms, “you can’t let me sleep. You can’t-” He cuts himself off with a wheeze of pain, eyes rolling in his head. Someone grabs his hand. He’s going to pass out, no matter how hard he fights it.

“He needs-”

“-well how would we even-”

“-down almost to the ribs-”

Ronan’s eyes fall shut. Adam’s hand traces his features as he drifts. There’s the catch of a callous on the edge of Ronan’s lip.

“Love you,” he slurs. He’s so cold he’s numb. Adam presses a kiss between his eyes and Ronan melts, just a little farther. The table is rigid and his spine aches. 

“Love you too. Stay with me, Ronan.” 

Ronan falls.


	9. Gatorade

“I still think we should have taken him to a hospital, but I understand why we couldn’t,” Blue murmurs, her head in Adam’s lap. 

He nods absently, staring at Ronan stretched out on Blue’s bed. He’s pale and shivering in his sleep, mouth slack. He’d passed out as Dean stitched up the gouges in his side and stayed unconscious. Blue reaches up and tugs on a lock of Adam’s damp hair. Showers all round had been necessary. He’d been soaked in Ronan’s blood, and Blue and Gansey hadn’t looked much better. Maura had organized them into a queue, forced them all to eat, and then sent Gansey to The Barns to collect Opal. Blue yawns. 

“You can go to sleep, you know,” Adam says, still staring at Ronan. 

“I don’t want to.”

He understands. Adam is worried that if he closes his eyes Ronan won’t be there when he opens them again. It had been bad, Adam had known from the moment Blue called him in tears, but it hadn’t prepared him for the stress. Ronan had been slit almost down to the bone across his rib cage and lower back, bleeding out in Gansey’s arms and then Adam’s. Ronan’s terrified face on the table, begging Adam to keep him awake. The smell of metal being heated, the sound of Ronan’s screams and moans of pain. Adam shudders. 

Ronan doesn’t wake up for another 7 hours. Calla is sitting with him when he finally does open his eyes, and the first thing he does, after moaning in pain as his body works him towards full consciousness, is ask for Adam. 

He and Blue race each other up the stairs, bursting into the room with a loud bang. Gansey is entertaining Opal in the backyard, and Maura had promised to get him. Ronan’s eyes are glazed with pain and exhaustion. Calla has a damp cloth on his forehead and a hand on his chest. 

“Tell this moron that if he sits up he’ll bleed to death,” she demands, storming from the room. Adam can see the tenderness in her eyes and doesn’t buy her anger for a second. 

“Ronan,” he breathes, taking the hand Blue hasn’t stolen for herself. Ronan grins, then grimaces. The thick bandages around his torso are splotched with little patches of blood. Blue is clinging to him, looking like she wants to both kill him and never let him go. Adam understands the sentiment. 

“Hey,” Ronan rasps. Blue hands him a gatorade with a straw in it, wrapping her tiny hand around Ronan’s broad one to keep it steady. 

“Where’s Gans?”

“Entertaining your child,” Blue says, setting the gatorade on the floor carefully, “you need to drink that whole gatorade before you’re allowed to move out of the bed.” 

“Help me sit up,” Ronan grunts, trying to shift himself to his elbows and failing. Adam grabs him by the armpits and hauls him up, sliding into the bed with him. Ronan whimpers at the pain, slumping against Adam’s chest tiredly and blinking up at him.

“Opal. Is she freaking out?”

Blue hands him the gatorade again. Ronan sips it slowly, looking completely exhausted from his five minutes of consciousness.

“Mom brought her up to see you when Gansey first got here. She cried for a bit and didn’t understand why she couldn’t get in bed with you, but then Gansey produced a soccer ball and she was distracted.” 

“Wanna see her.”

“Cool. Finish your gatorade.”

Ronan’s head rolls across Adam’s chest once, then he starts to drink. Blue takes it from him a few times. 

“Come on, Sargent.”

“If you drink it too fast, you’ll puke. You already puked on me today.”

He can feel Ronan’s smirk through the fabric of his shirt. 

He takes most of Ronan’s weight as they head down the stairs, Ronan’s head resting on his shoulder tiredly, Blue behind them with blankets, the “just in case” puke bucket (Adam doesn’t trust Ronan’s ability to keep the gatorade down either, if he’s honest) and a pillow. Adam deposits Ronan on the couch, and Ronan moans, face greying. Adam shoves his head between his knees. 

“M’fine,” Ronan stutters.

“You’re about to pass out,” Adam says tiredly. He sets the pillow on the couch, swings Ronan into a lying position, and covers him with a blanket. 

“Wanna see Opal,” Ronan whispers, sleep starting to take him. Adam nods, stepping into the kitchen. Opal is coloring, but she sees Adam and her face lights up.

“Kerah?”

“Only if you promise to be gentle, okay? Ronan is really hurt.” 

Opal nods and takes his hand, grinning 100 watts when she sees Ronan and immediately sitting cross legged on the floor next to his head. Ronan kisses her skullcap, eyelids fluttering.

“Do you feel better?” Opal asks, reaching for one of Ronan’s hands and holding it tightly. Ronan nods. 

“Yeah, brat. Lots better.”

“Good,” Opal says. Still holding Ronan’s hand, she reaches for her coloring that Adam had brought into the living room and immediately gets back to business.

“Sleep, Ro.”

Adam doesn’t have to tell him twice.


End file.
